The Quad [Feb. 10-17]: Four things to know from Clark, QCC and Becker

Lou Jones’ “Descendants” exhibit is part of an upcoming Clark University symposium.

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Clark’s Graduate School of Management recognized as a top business school

Clark University’s Graduate School of Management has once again earned accreditation by The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), a recognition received by less than 5 percent of the world’s business schools.

Every five years, AACSB-accredited institutions undergo a review to earn an extension on their previous accreditation. Clark’s GSOM is among 40 business schools to have extended its accreditation in business this year.

“Every AACSB-accredited school has demonstrated a focus on excellence in all areas, including teaching, research, curricula development and student learning,” said Stephanie M. Bryant, executive vice president and chief accreditation officer of AACSB. “The intense peer-review process exemplifies their commitment to quality business education.”

“We are honored once again to earn AACSB accreditation as one of the world’s best business schools,” said Priscilla Elsass, interim dean for the Graduate School of Management. “GSOM continues to offer rigorous programs that include specialized master’s degrees and an MBA within a small, supportive environment. I am proud of our faculty and staff’s commitment to quality and continuous improvement.”

GSOM’s newest program is its Master of Science in Business Analytics, launched last summer. The one-year intensive program combines online coursework with an on-campus classroom experience. Its first cohort of students will graduate in May.

State recognizes QCC as leader in expanding college pathways

Quinsigamond Community College has received the state’s Early College Program Preliminary Designation status, in addition to a $10,000 Early College Program Planning Grant, for its collaborative effort with Worcester State University and the Worcester Public Schools to establish college pathways for Worcester high school students.

The Boards of Higher Education and Elementary and Secondary Education named QCC as one of the 21 public colleges and universities to receive this preliminary designation, and one of eight educational institutions to be awarded a competitive planning grant. QCC will apply for final designation this month, with the goal of launching the program in the fall.

“We envision an expanded QCC Early College model that will exponentially increase college and career attainment for underserved Worcester Public School students,” said QCC President Dr. Luis G. Pedraja. “A decade-long partnership between QCC and Worcester Public Schools has already offered thousands of Worcester Public School students from the city’s seven high schools the opportunity to enroll in QCC courses each semester — both on campus and at their respective high schools. We now want to take this to the next level.”

QCC will collaborate with the Worcester school system and WSU to increase college pathways for underserved high school students, at no cost to the students by expanding upon QCC’s early college dual-enrollment program.

The early college program model will use multiple approaches and outreach strategies to reach, encourage and recruit underserved students who may not consider college an option due to barriers such as language, disability, financial and social factors, culture, and academic performance.

In 2011, QCC and Marlborough Public Schools launched an Early College program in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). In 2014, the program added six STEM-based pathways: manufacturing, engineering, information technology, computer science, healthcare and biotechnology. The goal is to also continue to expand this program and include career opportunities and certification completion.

Becker revises Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts curriculum

Becker College has revised the curriculum of its Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts program. The change is intended to facilitate degree completion for transfer students, as well as provide flexibility and choice for all students who enter the program.

The revised curriculum offers more electives and greater flexibility in course selection, particularly for students who wish to explore a variety of subjects, while developing critical thinking and analytic skills.

The BA in Liberal Arts will be offered in both the traditional and Accelerated programs, and students transferring from other institutions may bring in up to 90 credits of previous coursework.

Clark symposium focuses on analog, digital technologies

Clark University’s spring dialogue symposium will explore the analog/digital divide through a variety of events in the next couple of months, all open to the public.

“Analog processes convey a sense of craft and authenticity, suggesting a more direct relationship between maker, artifact, and beholder, but they may also be perceived as quaint and fetishized, rarified precisely because of labor-intensive exclusivity,” wrote Meredith Neuman, director of the Higgins School of Humanities, which is presenting the symposium. “By contrast, digital processes can simultaneously appear efficient and overwhelming, progressive and impersonal, radically accessible and avariciously monetized.”

All events for “Analog & Digital Conversations” will be held in Clark’s Higgins Lounge, Dana Commons 2nd floor, 36 Maywood St., Worcester. Admission is free. For more information, call 508-793-7479 or visit http://www2.clarku.edu/higgins-school-of-humanities/.

Exhibit: “Descendants” by Lou Jones, on display through May 20.When descendants of the original sitters gathered this past fall for the opening of “Rediscovering an American Community of Color: The Photographs of William Bullard” at the Worcester Art Museum, Jones was there to record the extraordinary gathering. The resulting photographs commemorate the reunion not only of families, but of analog and digital technologies, evolving photographic aesthetics, and a historic Worcester community.

Community conversation: “The Worlds We Live In,” 7 p.m. Feb. 15.Analog and digital realms are often more minutely entangled than we realize. Join professors Hugh Manon (Screen Studies; Media, Culture and the Arts) and Meredith Neuman (English; Higgins School) as they ask us to consider the continuities in making and knowing, and experiencing and exploring across the analog and digital divide.

Lecture: “Is Technology Good for Voting?” 7 p.m. Feb. 27. Charles Stewart III, professor of political science at MIT and the founding director of the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, will explore why America relies so heavily on voting technologies and how this dependence has been largely beneficial. But are there compelling new reasons for skepticism in light of the 2016 presidential election?

Lecture: “Shaping Critical Narratives in Photography in the African American Community” 7 p.m. March 20. New York University professor Deborah Willis will mediate between the objectification and (re)presentation of the black body in the work of William Bullard and other photographers who transformed the course of art history and fundamentally imaged the black in Western art.

Public forum: “After Maria,” 7 p.m. March 28.Panelists from across the Clark community will share stories of unimaginable transformations and the forced reversion from the digital world to analog life in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other places impacted by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. Professor María Acosta Cruz (Language, Literature and Culture) will lead this interactive forum.

Lecture: “Capturing and Eroding the Self: From Self-Portraiture to the Selfie,” 4:30 p.m. April 4.The selfie is everywhere, but in some ways, it is nothing new. Self-portraiture — for critical examination, personal expression, public display, and demonstration of craft — has a long history, but in its current digital form does it expand or shrink one’s perception of self? What is the purpose of a selfie, and is there still an art to making one? In this talk, John Garton (Visual and Performing Arts) will examine how the tradition pioneered in the Renaissance and other early modern epochs is being renovated today. Esteban Cardemil (Psychology) will offer commentary. This event is part of the Roots of Everything lecture series.

Lecture, “Undividing Digital and Analog: The Promise of Hybridity,” 7 p.m April 9. The opposition of digital progress and analog nostalgia is giving way to a new vision of hybridity, according to Rick Prelinger, founder of Prelinger Archives, a collection of 60,000 ephemeral films acquired by the Library of Congress in 2002. Centered on the archival record and the production of culture as models for social imagination, Prelinger will explore how strategies that look beyond physical/virtual binaries can aspire to redistribute power and heal digital wounds.

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